January 17, 2023 07:29
A new high-tech study has revealed nearly 1,000 ancient Mayan settlements, including 417 previously unknown cities connected to what may be the world’s first highway network and hidden for thousands of years by the thick jungles of northern Guatemala and southern Mexico.
This is the latest discovery of nearly 3,000-year-old Mayan sites and related infrastructure, said a statement issued Monday by a team from the Varese Foundation for Anthropological Research in Guatemala, which oversees what it calls the LIDAR studies.
The results were first published last month in the journal Ancient Mesoamerica.
All of the newly identified structures were constructed centuries before the emergence of the largest Mayan city, which was followed by great human achievements in mathematics and writing.
LIDAR technology uses aircraft to shoot pulses of light into dense forests, allowing researchers to clear vegetation and explore ancient buildings below.
Among the details unearthed in the latest analysis, the researchers said, was the first system of its kind in the ancient world of extended “rapid or hyper-highway” rock roads.
So far, about 177 kilometers of wide roads have been discovered, some of which are about 40 meters wide and up to five meters above the ground.
In the framework of the Cuenca Carstica Mirador-Calakmul study, whose research scope extends from the Petén forest in northern Guatemala to the state of Campeche in southern Mexico, researchers also identified pyramids and ball courts as well as important water engineering techniques that include reservoirs, dams and irrigation canals.
Source: Reuters
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